After seeing Chen Miao and his companion enter the secret realm, Doctor Gou stood silently in the 68th-floor hall, the smile on his face gradually fading away. He then stood expressionless, staring at the ground, lightly stroking the tiger's mouth on his left hand.
There was a faint pain there.
An old injury that had persisted over the years.
He was well aware of the dangers Chen Miao would face in the Experience Secret Realm, but he had chosen to send him there regardless, and had no other choice in the matter.
His identity had still been revealed.
The person from back then had found him.
The one who had killed his parents had found him.
All these years, he had known who the dark hand behind the scenes was, yet he pretended to be oblivious in his search for his enemy because that person was too powerful; he was no match for him.
If he had let anger cloud his judgment and sought out that person, death would have been his only outcome.
He didn't even dare to reveal his resentment.
He couldn't die.
He had to live to see the small clinic his ancestors had left behind. If not to make it thrive, then at least to keep it in existence. It seemed as though as long as the clinic remained, his parents still had traces in this world, not entirely dead.
But...
Now that person had come again, ready to target Chen Miao and Hungry Monkey, just as he had killed his parents three years ago. That person enjoyed the feeling of watching people around him die off one by one.
He thought he had completely escaped that person's clutches, but he was still living under surveillance. Perhaps it was because he gave too much to Chen Miao that day, catching that person's attention.
This time, he was no longer planning to run.
For the past three years, he had been living in agony, constantly thinking of rushing to avenge his parents and fight that person to the death, but he also feared that his ancestral clinic would disappear from the world.
Until he met Chen Miao...
"Huff!"
Doctor Gou slowly exhaled, and when he lifted his head again, all the confusion and hesitation in his eyes had vanished, leaving only a bleak determination.
Chen Miao was a promising business talent.
He would manage the Little Sunflower Andrology Clinic well.
Most importantly, Chen Miao was very much like him, with the same infinite yearning for secret realms, similar character traits, and a brother who seemed to share a close bond.
He had been like that too, but his brother was killed by that person.
He was no longer going to flee from the battle that had been delayed for three years.
Before the final showdown, he needed to send Chen Miao to a safe place; the Experience Secret Realm was a good choice. That person wouldn't dare to enter an already activated Experience Secret Realm to find Chen Miao, and three hours would be enough for him to settle his scores accumulated over the years.
Other secret realms were not feasible, as that person had special means to enter already activated common secret realms midway, posing a risk to Chen Miao. Only the Experience Secret Realm, a special realm, was impenetrable and safe enough.
As for the perils within the secret realm, he believed Chen Miao could overcome them.
A person who received a perfect evaluation on his first secret realm adventure was unlikely to die there.
At least, on his own first descent into a secret realm, he had not received any perfect evaluation.
Though Chen Miao had not mentioned this, he still kept an eye on the rankings.
He then walked directly to the service desk on the 68th floor, pulled out a letter from his chest, and said softly to the employee behind the desk, "When the F-level 'Medal of Warfire' secret realm ends, deliver this letter to a player named Chen Miao."
"Yes, sir."
With that, Doctor Gou did not linger.
Instead, he cast a glance at the middle-aged men conversing non-stop in the hall, a hint of coldness flickering in his eyes. These were the men who had once tried to kill him, but for the sake of not attracting the attention of that person, he had suppressed his desire for revenge.
If he was quick enough.
Today, he would settle both new grievances and old. When he came back, he would take care of these men as well.
As for his current ranking on the Combat Power list.
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Huh.
He wasn't stupid enough to have just idly waited for death in the clinic these past three years.
...
At this moment—
Chen Miao looked at the leaderboard in front of him within the secret realm.
"F-class Secret Realm Medal of Warfire Points Leaderboard"
"Rank 1": 8 points, Li Pingsheng, lv4. Magician.
"Rank 2": 7 points, Wang Ping, lv3. Archer.
"Rank 3": 6 points, Zhou Kousheng, lv4. Fighter.
"Rank 4": ...
...
Chen Miao's eyes slightly narrowed as he looked at the leaderboard without speaking. The leaderboard had a total of 30 people on it, and he and Hungry Monkey were listed at the very bottom two spots. At this time, the enemy forces had not yet charged to the foot of the city wall.
For players with the Fighter class, who relied on close-combat, there currently weren't many good strategies available.
On the other hand, players such as Magicians and Archers, who had respectable long-range combat power, were the first to take the lead.
Apart from the third-ranked Fighter, the remaining seven or eight Fighters only had 1 point each. As for the long-range attack method of that third-ranked Fighter, it was unclear, and he didn't have the time to care about it for the moment.
It was apparent.
Although these people had received orders to kill him, in their hearts, the priority of gathering as many Experience Points as possible was higher. They didn't come looking for him right away but instead, uniformly started to earnestly engage the enemies to farm Experience Points.
This meant that his odds of winning had just increased by ten percent.
Since entering the Experience Secret Realm, his highest priority wasn't farming Experience Points, but rather to kill these people first.
"Miao!"
Brandishing a hammer and standing at the entrance of a civilian house, Hungry Monkey spoke in a low voice with a vigilant look outside, "What do we do now? Those people have a murderous look in their eyes when they look at us. I've seen that kind of look before; it's the look of someone watching a dead man."
"Slip out of the city."
Seeing that battle had already begun on top of the city walls and that no one seemed to have plans to search for them, they didn't intend to continue hiding in this house but were prepared to exit the city.
Leaving the city was simple.
The ancient city was located between two mountains, with only two city walls, one in the front and the other in the rear. There were no walls on the sides, which were connected to the mountain. One could simply climb up the mountain and go around, and they would come to a place on the front side of the city wall, which was out of sight of the other players, where they could encounter enemy forces.
But such a move meant actively fleeing from an environment on the city walls where they were almost guaranteed to be safe.
Turning this almost absolutely safe Experience Secret Realm into a Combat Mystery Realm where they would have to fight the enemy in close quarters.
While the danger increased, the gain did not increase.
A rational person certainly would not choose this somewhat foolish option.
But at this moment, they had no choice.
...
The ancient city wasn't large; in fact, it was only about the size of a village from his previous life.
In under forty minutes, they had climbed the mountain and circumnavigated it to reach the location where the enemy forces appeared.
Below, in the valley.
There were countless military tents. At this moment, only a few hundred soldiers dressed neatly walked out from the tents. Under the command of a Centurion, they formed military formations and charged along the mountain road in the middle of the valley toward the end where the ancient city laid.
And a prompt sounded beside Chen Miao's ear.
"Ding, the second wave of enemy forces is about to arrive. Please all players get ready."
```